The present invention relates broadly to furniture designed to support a user's body in an essentially seated disposition, including traditional chairs (both of the type having a stationary seat portion and the type having a movable seat portion such as chairs conventionally referred to as recliners or incliners), chair sections of sofas, love seats and the like, sofa beds, and any other article of furniture having an essentially horizontal seat portion and an angularly oriented seat back portion, all of which are generically referred to herein as "chairs." More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel mechanism by which the seat back portion of any such chair may be selectively reclined angularly relative to the seat portion independently of and without regard to any movement or non-movement of the seat portion.
Recliner-type chairs are well known and the mechanical arrangements used therein for accomplishing the reclining motion are diverse and varied. Representative examples of varying types of recliner chairs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,874,724; 3,941,417; 3,958,827; 4,071,275; 4,077,663; 4,099,776; 4,108,491; 4,153,292; 4,195,878; 4,202,580; 4,350,386; 4,350,387; and 4,531,778.
Currently, the more popular types of recliner chairs typically provide three basic positions, a normal non-reclined sitting position with the seat generally horizontal and the seat back substantially upright, a partially reclined position often referred to as a "TV" position wherein the seat and seat back are disposed in a slightly reclined disposition but with the seat back still sufficiently upright to permit comfortable television viewing from the chair, and a fully reclined position wherein the seat back is pivoted toward horizontal into an obtuse relationship with the seat for lounging or sleeping. Most such recliner chairs also include a footrest coordinated with the mechanical arrangement to be extended forwardly of the seat in the TV and fully reclined positions.
Such recliner chairs have met with substantial popularity. However, the recliner mechanisms utilized in such chairs are relatively complicated, which adds significantly to the overall cost of a recliner chair in comparison to comparable chairs without any reclining capability. Essentially, a potential segment of the chair market has been left largely unaddressed in that few if any chairs have been introduced providing a more simplified and less expensive capability for merely reclining the seat back without incorporating the multiple positions and/or movable foot rest of traditional reclining chairs of the type described above. Further, many traditional reclining chairs suffer the disadvantage that the seat back in the fully reclined position will contact an adjacent wall unless the base of the chair is moved outwardly away from the wall. To address this problem, various recliner mechanisms have been designed to cause the seat and seat back to move forwardly relative to the chair base while moving from the TV position to the fully reclined position, thereby to avoid contact between the seat back and the wall.